


Forty-Eight Thousand

by skyblue_reverie



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Awesome Ronon, Emotionally constipated John Sheppard, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e20 The Last Man, Episode: s05e01 Search and Rescue, First Kiss, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends to Lovers, John Sheppard POV, M/M, a little h/c-y, run-on sentences galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie
Summary: It had been bizarre, talking to the older version of Rodney, with his bushy eyebrows and old-man cardigan.(Goes AU from the end of Season 5, Episode 1, Search and Rescue because Rodney and Keller, just no.  Never happened.  La la la I can't hear you.)
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 32
Kudos: 115





	Forty-Eight Thousand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ivorysilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivorysilk/gifts).



> For ivorysilk, who, on a scale from one to ten, is forty-eight thousand. Happy birthday, honey!
> 
> Beta and cheerleading by my darling ennui_blue_lite/prismabird.

Later, much later, after they’d been buried under a building, and rescued Teyla, and Rodney had delivered her baby, and John’d had surgery, and Keller had cleared him to go finish his recovery in his quarters (and he could barely stand to look at Keller, knowing what she’d been to Rodney – what she _would be_ to Rodney?), and he’d tried to do some basic stretches, failed and caused himself agonizing pain in the process, and collapsed in bed, he finally let himself think about it. Forty-eight thousand years. He’d gone _forty-eight thousand years_ into the future. That was weird enough. On top of that, he’d found Rodney there, waiting for him. And somehow, that hadn’t surprised him in the slightest. And that was the weirdest of all.

It had been bizarre, talking to the older version of Rodney, with his bushy eyebrows and old-man cardigan. It had been _wrong_. Rodney wasn’t supposed to get old. Or at least, John wasn’t supposed to ever witness Rodney growing old. If he thought about it, which he tried not to (the way he tried not to think about so many things, it was a wonder he had any thoughts left at all) he never expected to be around long enough to see Rodney grow old. Not that John was suicidal, or even lacked a sense of self-preservation, no matter what Rodney might say (and when had it happened, that everything in his life was viewed through the lens of what Rodney would say, or think, or do?). But their lives were dangerous, and when it came down to it, he’d throw his own life away in a heartbeat to save the others. Any of the others, really, but ultimately, it was Rodney he’d be dying to protect. If he died to save Teyla, or Ronon, it would be with the expectation that they’d protect Rodney, even from himself, in John’s stead. Maybe it was a warrior thing, because Teyla and Ronon knew that, without a word having to be said. Rodney had no idea, and that’s the way John wanted to keep it.

John also never looked too closely at his feelings for Rodney. That way lay madness. (Feelings were even worse than thoughts and were to be avoided as much as possible.) He loved Rodney “like a friend loves another friend,” as he’d told him that day, and if there was more to it than that, he’d never admitted it, not even to himself. And god, that was yet another thing he tried not to think about, when he’d been about to lose Rodney to death or ascension and it had been like looking at the cliff’s edge approaching at high speed, knowing that he’d go over it right after Rodney, that without Rodney to tether him he’d go into free fall and would welcome oblivion when it came. So yeah, he figured he was in way over his head when it came to Rodney, but he’d never planned to do anything about it. Ever.

John had at least some idea of how Rodney felt about him. John might have been emotionally stunted, but he wasn’t completely blind, and the way Rodney looked at him sometimes, when he thought John wouldn’t notice, like Rodney was burning up with heat and John was the world’s most delicious popsicle… well, he figured Rodney wasn’t totally indifferent to him. There was some measure of attraction, at least. But as to anything deeper than that on Rodney’s end, he didn’t know and he didn’t want to know. Denial was a comfortable place for both of them, and he figured Rodney would be happier settling down someday with a wife and a picket fence and kids or cats or something than he would be dealing with the fucked-up mess that was John Sheppard and his emotional baggage.

But now – but now. Now he knew things he’d never wanted to know, and his comfortable denial had been blown all to hell and gone. He knew that Rodney had obsessed for twenty-five years and invented an entirely new branch of math in order to make sure that some part of himself was there for John in the future. He’d defied Keller’s freaking _deathbed request_ in order to do so. And yeah, in doing so he’d saved a lot of lives, but still. Rodney could have made a program to guide John through getting back in time without making an intelligent, self-aware version of himself that had had to wait _forty-eight thousand years_ , alone, in order to be there for John for a few short hours. And if all that wasn’t enough, there was what the hologram had told him, right before John stepped through the stargate back to his own time.

The door chime interrupted his thoughts and he called out, “Come in,” mentally sending Atlantis the command to open the door so that he wouldn’t have to try to stagger across the room to wave his palm over the sensor, and Ronon popped his head through the doorway. He waved him in, tried to sit up and felt the pulling at his stitches, and subsided back onto his pillow. 

“Sheppard,” Ronon said, standing next to his bed and looking down at him, blank-faced. Of course, Ronon was nearly always blank-faced. Then once in a while he would grin that wide little-boy grin and his face would light up and John would realize all over again how damn young Ronon really was. But there was no grin right now, just his usual neutral, serious expression.

“Hey, buddy,” Sheppard replied. Neither of them were big on talking, so their conversations tended to consist of a few words, a few grunts (Ronon), and a few facial expressions (John). Rodney found it ridiculous and Teyla found it amusing, but it worked for them.

“Glad you’re okay,” Ronon said after a few moments of silence.

“Glad to be okay,” John replied. He thought that was going to be it and waited for Ronon to leave, but he just kept standing there. John raised an eyebrow and waited.

“McKay went a little crazy for those twelve days you were gone,” Ronon said. “When you were in the future,” he clarified, as if there had been any doubt. 

John felt his heart beat pick up a little but tried his best to suppress any reaction. “Well, half the team was missing. I’m sure you looked after him.” He knew his face was saying _you damn well_ better _have looked after him,_ but he wouldn’t verbalize it. 

Ronon just grunted. “Wasn’t that half the team was missing. It was that you were missing.” It was stated flatly, like it was simply an incontrovertible fact. John concentrated on keeping his face and body still. 

“Okay…” he said, putting a warning tone in his voice. He figured that Ronon had picked up on the way Rodney looked at John sometimes, and apparently the way Rodney had behaved while he was gone was revealing in some way, but he didn’t want Ronon to vocalize it. Of course, once Ronon had decided to say or do something, nothing and nobody was going to stop him.

“Your military’s rules are stupid,” Ronon added, in a seeming non sequitur, but John knew where he was going and he didn’t want to hear it.

John was silent, and made his face as forbidding as possible. Ronon, of course, took no notice.

“Couples make a team stronger, not weaker. And you can’t help who you love, Sheppard. You shouldn’t have to try.”

He felt a slow flush creep up his face and his heart rate picked up. Ronon knew – not only that Rodney was attracted to John, but worse, that John felt something for Rodney in return. Shit. He’d tried so hard to hide his feelings for Rodney; he’d been sure they hadn’t shown, that he had it locked down, but Ronon knew. And if Ronon knew, who else did? He was starting to panic.

“You should talk to him,” Ronon continued.

“Talk to who? About what?” John tried playing dumb. Ronon just gave him a look that promised painful retribution if he didn’t quit being an idiot. Damn it.

“He’s getting you some food. He’ll be here in about five. You tell him how you feel, or I’ll do it for you. I’m tired of all the UST,” Ronon said. John’s eyebrows rose. UST? Who taught him that particular term? He shook his head and tried to focus.

“It’s not that easy,” John began. Couldn’t Ronon see that? It didn’t matter how he felt, it didn’t matter how Rodney felt, they couldn’t do this. Couldn’t risk it. “What if I fuck it up?” John knew he would fuck it up, the way he fucked up all of his relationships, and then they’d have nothing. 

“It _is_ that easy,” Ronon said, with finality. “Even if you fuck it up, at least you will have tried. Don’t be a coward. Tell him how you feel or I will. Five minutes.” Then he turned and walked out the door. Damn him and his dramatic exits anyway.

John tried to spend his five minutes of freedom coming up with something clever to say when Rodney showed up, or, really, anything at all to say. He’d settle for coherent at this point. He was so, so tired. And even with the meds Keller had forced on him, his stitches still hurt like a sonofabitch. 

He was still trying to come up with something beyond “Hey, Rodney,” when the man in question barged through his door, carrying a tray. John’s door was set to open for Rodney automatically, as was Rodney’s for him, something that had happened during the first year of the expedition but that neither had ever actually said a word about. Not talking had worked for them so far, so damn Ronon anyway for forcing this on him.

Rodney had put the tray down on his desk and was now busily adjusting John into a sitting position and stacking extra pillows behind him so that John could be upright without having to do any of the work himself and it was nice but still, he had his pride, and so he was slapping at Rodney’s hands with both of his until he realized that that made him look like a pouty little kid and so he subsided, grumbling. Rodney, ignoring John’s displeasure, picked up the tray from his desk and plunked it onto John’s lap and then stood back, rocking on the balls of his feet, looking both pleased and smug. Damn it, smug should not be so attractive. John felt the corner of his mouth twitch up in a reluctant return smile and then he firmly pulled it back into a scowl. 

But it was hard to scowl when Rodney had brought him only things on Keller’s approved post-surgery list, and all of them his favorites, to boot. There was not-chicken broth, and unapplesauce and, wonder of wonders, actual chocolate mousse. He dug into that first, moaning involuntarily when the bittersweet flavor exploded across his palate. He heard a choking sound coming from Rodney, and when he looked up, Rodney was flushed bright red, now looking flustered.

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Rodney-baiting was one of John’s favorite pastimes. As expected, Rodney rushed to fill the silence. “Yes, well. I sacrificed my last chocolate bar for that mousse, so I hope you appreciate it. Of course the Daedalus is here now so I should be getting in new supplies of chocolate but you never know if those morons are going to actually bring what they’re told to bring – “

“Rodney,” John cut in. (Win, Rodney-babble achieved!) “Thank you.”

“Oh, well. You’re welcome. Colonel. I mean John. I mean... yes, of course.” Rodney shut his mouth abruptly.

“Siddown,” John said. “You’re gonna give me a crick in my neck looming like that.”

Rodney huffed but pulled out John’s desk chair and sat down facing him. They looked at each other. The silence stretched uncomfortably. Then they both spoke at the same time.

“You still had hair,” John said, at the same time as Rodney said “I didn’t really want to know about my hair.”

Then they both fell silent again and looked at each other. God, talking sucked. John was going to kick Ronon’s ass. Once he could take more than two steps without falling over in pain. Okay, he was never actually going to be able to kick Ronon’s ass. But he’d give him a really vicious wet willie.

“Wait, I had hair? You lied?” Rodney sounded mystified.

“I thought you didn’t care,” John returned.

“I don’t – well, not really,” Rodney said, obviously fibbing. “But why on earth did you lie about it?”

John squirmed uncomfortably. The truth was that he’d been trying to deflect. He hadn’t wanted to think about the whole experience, much less talk about it, and he really _really_ hadn’t wanted to put into words what it had done to him, seeing Rodney like that, gray and tired, knowing what Rodney had done for all of them, for him.

“Because it was a dumb thing to ask,” he finally said.

Rodney looked a little chagrined at that. “Well, as I said, that’s not actually what I wanted to ask about.”

John just looked at Rodney expectantly. Sure enough, Rodney continued. “I mean, I wanted to ask so many things, but then there was no time and we had to go, and that question just sort of popped out.”

“Okay, so what did you want to ask?” John braced himself. Here came the part where Rodney was going to ask things he really didn’t want to answer.

“So, me and Keller?” Rodney asked. “How did _that_ happen? I mean, she’s pretty and all, but she’s so young, and a voodoo practitioner on top of that, and we went on one date but it was incredibly awkward, and she didn’t even have any interest in the frankly genius enhancements I’m making to the long-range sensor system and then she lectured me about my eating habits and cholesterol levels and it was, well.” He stopped. “Really? Me and Keller?”

“Yeah,” John replied, a leaden weight in his stomach. This was not the turn in conversation he’d expected, and even though he really didn’t want to confess his own feelings for Rodney, he wanted even less to push Rodney towards Keller, but he’d suck it up if that was what Rodney wanted. “I guess you two bonded on the Daedalus, on the trip back to earth, after…” _After everyone else was dead or gone,_ he didn’t say.

“Huh,” Rodney said, looking thoughtful. “I guess that would do it. But in this timeline? No way.” Rodney shuddered a little, and John couldn’t help feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“What was it like?” Rodney asked abruptly. “Talking to that other me, I mean. The hologram me.”

John paused a moment. He didn’t like thinking about that hologram Rodney, his faded blue eyes, the lines of grief etched into his face. He could still see that face superimposed on this Rodney’s, and it made something inside of him clench unpleasantly. He never wanted this Rodney to look like that, so careworn. “Weird,” he finally said. Rodney just rolled his eyes and made a “keep going” circle with his hand. “You seemed… sad. Tired. Lonely, I guess. I mean, you’d been alone for forty - ”

“Forty-eight thousand years, yes I know,” Rodney cut in. “I suppose it’s only to be expected that even someone – something, whatever - with my superior intellect would become bored after tens of thousands of years of just thinking.” 

Then Rodney’s eyes slid to the side and he fidgeted a bit. John tensed. When Rodney spoke, it was hesitant. “Did he… give you any message for me? Or… tell you anything about me, younger me, this me, I mean?” 

John froze. Moment of truth time. He so wasn’t ready. But he’d promised. And even if he'd been inclined to put it off, Ronon was waiting to pounce on Rodney if John didn’t fess up now. He had no choice. 

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, actually. He… extracted a promise. And he left you a message.”

He paused there, stuck. The words wouldn’t come. Rodney, to his surprise, expressed no impatience, just waiting quietly, still not quite meeting John’s eyes. Eventually John’s throat eased enough to continue. “The message was, ‘Tell John how you feel. You’ll always regret it if you don’t.’” 

Rodney paled and his Adam’s apple bobbed jerkily as he swallowed, but he didn’t seem shocked. Resigned, maybe. And scared, like he was waiting for the executioner’s axe to fall. “And the promise?” he asked faintly.

“He made me promise not to run away when you did, to listen and at least consider what you said.”

With that, Rodney finally looked John square in the eyes, and John forced himself to meet Rodney’s gaze. Whatever Rodney saw, though, it made his mouth crook unhappily and he rose to his feet. “Well,” he said. “I guess there’s no need to actually say the words. It’s pretty obvious what he meant, and from your reaction – or lack thereof - it’s pretty obvious that it’s not mutual.” He turned to go.

“Wait!” The word was torn from John before he could even consciously form a thought. Rodney froze, his back still to John. Unfortunately, that one word was all he could force out before his throat closed up again. Seconds passed; he saw Rodney’s shoulders begin to hunch and he could practically feel the hope draining out of him, the misery flooding in to take its place. John couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand to let Rodney walk out the door and believe that John didn’t care. He knew with sudden clarity that this was the moment he had to grab – if he didn’t now, they’d both rebuild their walls so high and thick that they’d never be close enough to reach each other again. So he drew on a well of courage that he didn’t even know he had and forced the words out. “It is,” he husked, the words scraping out of his throat like sandpaper. 

Rodney said nothing, and he didn’t turn back, but he didn’t leave either. So John cleared his throat and tried again. “It is mutual,” he said, the words coming out barely louder than a whisper. But now Rodney was slowly turning around, so John figured he must have heard. That thought was almost more panic-inducing than the thought of Rodney walking away. Almost.

When Rodney’s eyes met his again, he felt flayed open, that bright, brilliant gaze searching out and finding everything that John had tried so hard to keep hidden, and John had to struggle not to smirk, or make a sarcastic remark, or any one of his dozens of techniques for avoiding self-revelation. His heart pounded loud in his own ears and his breath came in shallow gasps. It was the single most terrifying moment of his life. 

Then Rodney was moving back toward him, a look of heartbreaking hope and uncertainty on his expressive face. When he reached John’s bedside he leaned in, a little stiffly, a little awkwardly, but John tilted his face to meet Rodney’s and then Rodney’s lips were on his, a little rough and chapped, but so warm and soft and so _right_.

He felt Rodney’s hands come up and cup his cheeks and he surged forward, trying to get impossibly closer, and for a moment it was bliss, until his torn stomach muscles seized up in agony and he gasped and fell back against the pillows. 

Rodney immediately stepped back and John missed his warmth already. “Sorry, sorry,” Rodney was saying, only it came out “Sorey, sorey,” in that Canadian accent that only popped out on a few words, and which John found adorable even if he’d never admit it, and he had to smile despite the pain in his midsection. 

“Sokay, not your fault,” he told Rodney. “I shouldn’t have tried to move like that.”

“Yes, well, see that you remember it next time,” Rodney huffed. “You’re not indestructible, no matter what you may think.”

“Aren’t you going to offer to kiss it and make it better?” John batted his eyelashes outrageously, just to see Rodney’s reaction.

Rodney just sniffed disdainfully. “No, I’m not going to put my lips on your sterile dressings. Do you know how many bacteria are in the human mouth? You’d probably get an infection and then you’d get gangrene and then I’d have to wait months to get laid!” Then he shut his mouth with an audible click and blushed bright red. “Uh, I mean, not to make assumptions, and not that that would be the worst thing about you having a gangrenous gut wound, I just meant…”

John laughed, winced as even that put strain on his stitches, and took pity on Rodney. “Yeah, Rodney, I know what you meant. And yeah, once I get healed up a little more, I think we’re both gonna get lucky.” This time he threw Rodney a lascivious look, together with an eyebrow waggle.

Rodney rolled his eyes at this, but there was a fond smile on his face and a nice flush still, high on his cheekbones, so John was going to count it as a win.

They were staring at each other now, the silence full of so many things that John didn’t know where or how to begin, and it looked like Rodney was having the same trouble. Just when it was getting awkward ( _again,_ god, both of them sucked at this), the door chime sounded. Ronon’s head popped in, and Atlantis must have opened the door at Ronon’s request because John certainly hadn’t asked for the door to be opened and have his – whatever – with Rodney interrupted, awkward silence or not. But Ronon just looked at them and rumbled, “Have you two kissed yet?” and then looked at the resulting blushes on both of their faces, gave one of his broad grins and a thumbs-up, and left again.

“Wait, Ronon knew?” Rodney asked once the door had closed, turning back to John and sounding baffled. “I mean I figured Teyla might know, she always knows these things, it’s almost eerie really, but Ronon knew? How?”

John shook his head. “I think we’re better off not knowing,” he said. Rodney appeared to contemplate this for a moment and then nodded his agreement.

Before the silence could get awkward again, Rodney blurted, “I brought the Resident Evil movie. Milla Jovovich.” He produced a dvd in a paper sleeve from his pocket and motioned towards John’s laptop on the desk.

“Ooh, nice choice,” John said. Rodney looked as if he were about to sit in the chair next to the bed, but John patted the space next to him on the bed. “If you take this tray and help me move over a little, we can both fit,” he offered, trying for matter-of-fact but sounding bashful instead, to his own chagrin.

Rodney perked up like someone had just offered him ten pounds of the really good coffee beans, though, so it was worth it. And then, sitting with his side pressed up against Rodney’s, with John’s laptop across both their legs and each of them darting little sideways glances at the other and smiling when they happened to catch each other’s eyes, he figured that forty-eight thousand years wasn’t too far to go, if he got to have this.


End file.
